The Dave Project

As a climax to the Milwaukee Art Museum's spring 2010 installation entitled
"To Speculate Darkly" by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates,
"The Dave Project" brings forth five interactive workshops to
Milwaukee residents with an astounding performance by Chicago-based poet Orron
Kenyetta. By embarking on a series of community-involved workshops, the
Chipstone Foundation poses the question, "If you had less than a dozen
words to make your mark, what would you say?" On October 24, the first of
five "Dave reductions" took place at the Lynden Sculpture Garden and
will proceed throughout November at several Milwaukee locations.

The outstanding premise behind these workshops encourages each individual to
take the essence of Dave the potter, a slave from a South Carolina pottery
plantation in the 1850s, a step further. During a time when it was illegal for
slaves to read and write, Dave inscribed couplets of 20 words or less on the
pots he shaped, creating a permanent portal into the past through these
historic vessels. But why did he do it? What was he trying to convey?

Ethan Lasser, a curator at the Chipstone Foundation, along with Kenyetta and
other Dave enthusiasts, led a two-hour discussion followed by a hands-on
workshop, in which each person was given a clay tile to inscribe their own
coupletultimately taking the notion of permanence and the power of literacy
and expression, to new heightened levels. Issues of race and labor present in
the couplets, like Gates explored in the spring exhibition, are interpreted
under each individual participant's magnify glass throughout this workshop.

After Lasser laid down
the groundwork, Kenyetta set the stage with his excellent and provocative poem,
"Dave in the Glaze." Then each line from one of Dave's 40 or so
couplets on wood-fire, stoneware pots was broken down and analyzed by
participants.

Through this collaborative effort, two objectives transpire. The first makes
the story of Dave and his pots known to as many people in this city as
possible. Secondly, it uses an old object to confront some of the challenges in
our city today, like the separation of racial groups in Milwaukee.

"We aren't solving any problems obviously, but we are trying to engage
with one, and trying to involve different pockets of Milwaukee in the Dave
exercise," said Lasser.

If you are interested in participating in these free workshops, you may attend
any one of the following dates: Tuesday, November 16, 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the
Alma Center (2568 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Dr.) and Wednesday, November 17,
7-9 p.m. at the Green Gallery West (631 E. Center St.). Each workshop is filmed
and will be posted online for viewing.

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